Small divot in box

[Luis Reyes]

Hi All,

I’m making a box out of sapele and hickory for a Mother’s Day present. It’s a mitered box with splines and when I cut the excess splines with a flush cut saw I must’ve tilted the saw as i cut into the box.

How would you fix this divot prior to applying finish? I’m thinking some dust and glue but I don’t have any sapele dust. I also saw a video a while back where I think someone applied Tung oil or some sort of finish and hand sanded a small Gao and he filled it in.

Let me know if there are any suggestions! I plan on finishing with Waterlox if that makes any difference

IMG_0501.jpg

Thanks!

Luis

[andy bessette]

...I’m thinking some dust and glue...

No. Re-surface it until the screw-up disappears. This kind of damage is easy to avoid by using a Japanese saw and keeping light pressure, with two finger, to hold it flat against the surface.

[Phil Mueller]

If at all possible, I think it’s best to try to “patch” with wood.

I’d remove/even out the depth of the spline, glue in a piece of the same wood, and sand/pare flush. Better yet, just rework the whole spline.

While a bit tedious, I’d clean up the sapele divot, and cut a small piece of sapele to fill.

If you plane/sand that side down to make the divot disappear, it will most certainly cause a flat spot on the mitered corner. Just my 2 cents.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I would cut a small piece of appropriate wood slightly larger, lay it over the area, outline it with a sharp knife. Then using knife, chisels etc, remove the additional material from the damaged area to fit the "butterfly", apply glue to the "butterfly", let it dry and finish the project.

[John TenEyck]

^^^^^

If it's solid wood, just sand or hand plane it down until the mistake disappears.

John